Venezuela Offers to Remove Dangerous French Implants Found in Many Latin American Women

After a number of women in Latin America discovered their breast implants were filled with industrial silicone and prone to rupture, Venezuela stepped in a has offered to help.

Tuesday, Venezuela’s health minister announced that patients who had been given implants from bankrupt French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) could check into the country’s hospitals and have the dangerous implants removed for free. However, the implants would not be replaced.

Many of the PIP implants in Venezuela were brought in illegally, and now research has shown that the industrial silicone-injected implants have an unusually high rupture rate.

In Latin America, cosmetic procedures are rising.. In fact, earlier this year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez went on a tangent earlier this year about breast augmentation, claiming it leads to teen pregnancy and drug addiction, and failed to enhance his revolutionary priorities in any way.

It is estimated that in Venezuela alone, 30,000 to 40,000 women undergo breast surgery every year.

So while the PIP implants are dangerous and should probably be removed from all you have them, Chavez is more than happy to provide free removal, because as they’ve stated, they will not be replaced, cutting back on the number of women with implants.

It is estimated that some 300,000 PIP implants were used in cosmetic procedures, with tens of thousands of them being bought in Latin America, where the demand for cosmetic procedures continues to grow.

Studies are currently being performed to determine if ruptured PIP implants are causing cancer.